The determinants of entrepreneurship for migrants in Italy. Do Italian migrants become entrepreneurs by “opportunity” or through “necessity”?

This research aims to contribute to the literature on migrants’ entrepreneurship by investigating the determinants of self-employment for migrants in Italy. The analysis is carried out using a data set by the National Observatory for the Financial Inclusion of Migrants in Italy, developed and managed by the Centre of International Political Studies (CeSPI).Controlling for the macroeconomic context and for the migration plan, we find out that the main determinants of migrant entrepreneurship in Italy are related to migrants’ nationality, length of stay, ownership of a current account, gender, proximity of partner, and education. Moreover, our data show that, despite the aftermath of the crisis, the decision of starting a business is for men a matter of opportunity and not of necessity, and that being married increases the negative effect of being a woman on the probability of being an entrepreneur. Furthermore, data shows that the causal relation between risk taking and being an entrepreneur holds true for migrant entrepreneurs in Italy and that the difficulties faced in having qualifications and competences recognised push migrants into self-entrepreneurship.